


Hey Brother

by QueenKara671



Series: Of Children and Chess Pieces [4]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Blaze Hybrid Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, John Mulaney References, Multiple Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Niki | Nihachu and Ranboo and Eret are Siblings, References to Hypixel, References to Minecraft Mechanics, hypixel is sports and you cant take this away from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29515947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenKara671/pseuds/QueenKara671
Summary: They finally reached the base. "Well, this is my home." He told them, following it with, "You're welcome to stay the night, if you'd like."The girl squinted at him. "Why are you helping us?"---A reflection on how three siblings got to where they are today, in three parts.
Relationships: Eret & Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo, Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Of Children and Chess Pieces [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154291
Comments: 23
Kudos: 136





	1. Eret

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from "Hey Brother" by Avicii.
> 
> Enjoy!

He didn't have a lot in this world.

He had a name. He had the clothes on his back, which he had found in a dumpster. He had his wits.

He had his eyes.

Those cursed eyes.

_ (Sometimes he wondered if his parents had left him on the streets because of them. He figured it was the most likely answer. At least he had ways to hide them.) _

He didn't like people getting hurt, but he had learned quickly that it was more important to keep himself safe than to try and help a stranger.

Which is why he didn't know why he was leading this little girl and the toddler with her back to his hideout.

_ (He did know. He'd lived on the streets as long as he could remember. His heart had ached as soon as he had seen them, though he honestly wasn't much older. But he felt the need to protect the two fellow orphans nonetheless.) _

He helped the girl parkour up to his base, an abandoned apartment in a complex that was scheduled to be torn down but never had been. He offered to help her carry the youngest, an enderman hybrid, he thought, but she refused.

They finally reached the base. "Well, this is my home." He told them, following it with, "You're welcome to stay the night, if you'd like."

The girl squinted at him. "Why are you helping us?"

He didn't respond. He wasn't sure how to respond, if he was being honest. 

She didn't seem to like that, but the toddler pulled on her sleeve and said, "Niki, maybe he has snacks!" The girl, Niki, seemed to hesitate at that. She turned towards him cautiously. He dashed over to his single chest, pulling out a few pieces of bread and handing one piece each to the kids. She seemed suspicious, but the young hybrid boy scarfed it down immediately. The server they were on was on Easy, so they probably wouldn't have starved to death, but hunger still wasn't an enjoyable experience. 

She cautiously took a bite, and he smiled at her. 

"What's your name, anyways?" She asked.

"Eret." He responded.

"Nice to meet you." She pointed to herself, then to the toddler. "I'm Nihachu, or Niki, and this is Ranboo."

Eret smiled. "Nice to meet you too."

* * *

Eret had been hesitant when the letter first arrived.

_ "Dear Eret, _

_ You have been formally invited to the Dream SMP. It's a private, whitelist-only server. Attached is the whitelist card. We're excited to have you! _

_ -Dream SMP Admins" _

There was no explanation attached. She was decently certain it was a result of teaming with Dream and George during MCC, since the team had gotten third overall, and he was certainly intrigued by the offer but…

They'd have to leave their siblings behind. There was only one whitelist card, and he didn't know how Dream or the other admins would respond if one of his younger siblings showed up in his stead. She couldn't just leave them.

"What are you going to do?" Ranboo asked, reading the letter over their shoulder.

Eret placed the letter back down on the table. "I'm not going."

"...You're not?"

They shook their head. "I can't just leave you two here--"

"No, you should go." Niki interrupted from her place on the couch. Both siblings turned to look at her.

"...What?" Eret asked.

"You should go. It's a smaller server, you should be able to make a place for yourself easily."

"But--"

"And," Niki continued, "Once you make a name for yourself there, you can convince Dream to let Ranboo and I on the server. Sapnap's a blaze hybrid, we all know about the Dream Team, so I don't see any reason why Ranboo wouldn't be allowed on."

Ranboo hesitated. "She has a point. It… it would be nice to have a stable home."

Eret couldn't say no the that. She sighed. "Fine. Just… promise me you two will be safe?"

"We'll be fine, Eret." Niki stood up and ran over to hug him. "If we need anything we'll call you, alright?"

Ranboo joined the hug. "We'll miss you."

"I'll miss you two too." Eret said.

They left for the Dream SMP the next day.

* * *

They hadn't wanted to betray Wilbur. But the revolution was going nowhere.

Her siblings were still on their home server, if it could be called a home, struggling by. He had heard that Ranboo had even resorted to visiting Hypixel, playing in the dangerous games for a bit of money to get by. It wasn't illegal, mini-games were commonplace, but it wasn't always painless. Her brother shouldn't have to do that. He was still a child, after all.

Dream's offer seemed too good to be true. Of course, it only promised one of his siblings' safety. But there were ways to work around that, and the money would be more than enough to keep the other financially stable until they could get both of them onto the server.

He just hoped the L'manbergians would forgive him.

…

_ "Down with the revolution, boys. _

_ It was never meant to be." _


	2. Niki

In the end, she had been the one to leave for the Dream SMP. 

It wasn't the original choice. She had  _ insisted  _ on Ranboo going, and Eret had agreed. He was the youngest after all, and the only one purely non-human, though they didn't know what his second half was. The Dream SMP was known to be an accepting place for hybrids compared to many other servers, and both of them agreed that leaving their younger brother alone on a server by himself was a poor idea. So Eret had told Dream their decision.

Niki didn't know what had happened, exactly. But Dream had refused.

_ "No." He responded after a minute. _

_ "What do you mean, 'no'? You promised!" Eret shouted incredulously. _

_ "I promised one of your siblings could join the server. Both of them can join, even. But not yet." The admin had dismissed the ruler with a wave of his hand. "Niki can join. Ranboo will come in due time." _

_ "But--" _

_ "You are  _ dismissed,  _ Eret. You may be the king, but we both know who's really in charge here." _

So, after a lot of arguing between the two eldest, Niki was going. 

"I'll be fine," Ranboo had insisted, "Between the money you two will be sending back and money I get from Skywars and Bedwars games, I'll have more than enough."

"But your memory issues…" She had frowned. "You're still planning on doing mini-games?"

"You two can call me and make sure I'm okay. You're already marked on my coms as 'always answer', so is Eret. And yeah, they're fun and it's a good way to rack up extra money." The hybrid laughed. "Not to mention, my height gives me a bit of an advantage, hmm? Maybe one day I'll save up enough money to get a cool crown like the one Eret has."

She had sighed, fidgeting with the whitelist card in her hand. "If you're sure…"

So there she was, stood in front of blackstone walls that she knew her sibling had been the one to build.

He had insisted on two things. One, that no one except Dream knew that they were siblings. Two, that she joined her sibling's former country instead of the Dream SMP.

It hadn't made a lot to her initially, but after it was explained to her, she understood. Eret didn't trust Dream further than she could throw him, and they most definitely didn't trust Dream with the safety of their siblings. The L'manbergians would certainly not trust her if they knew she was Eret's sister, so as far as they were aware she was just another of the new people Dream had whitelisted.

She stepped into the black and yellow walls, the walls she was painfully aware her sibling had built, and smiled.

"Hi, I was wondering if I could join L'manberg?"

* * *

"Wilbur's a monster now. He's gone insane." Tommy started. Niki heard Tubbo agree in the background as he continued. "And Techno? Techno just wants blood. But listen--Tubbo, can you pick up this jukebox really quick?"

"Uh, I don't have a pickaxe."

Niki smiled faintly as the boys talked. She froze as she realised something.

They were going to play a disc in front of her. One of their  _ real _ discs. 

They trusted her.

...Niki was reminded so much of Ranboo when she looked at them. It was almost painful. The same urge to protect them was there. She was sure it was how Eret felt when they thought about Ranboo and herself as well.

She followed Tommy and Tubbo up a small hill, and watched as Tommy put "Blocks" into the jukebox that had been placed down. He sighed.

"We can't go down now. We're together, alright?"

"Yes. We are." She said.

"We can't lose now."

Her voice shook a little as she spoke. "We will figure something out. As long as we stick together."

"Yeah!" Tubbo affirmed her statement.

He had just lost a life mere hours before. She wondered how he could be so cheerful.

Was it an act? Did he not want them to worry?

"And we've gotta stick together, alright?" Tommy said.

"Yes."

Yes, they would stick together. She couldn't just leave them alone with Techno and Wilbur. She wasn't the same kind of monster that her friends had become.

Niki would protect these boys the best she can.

The three of them sat and watched the sunset.

_ (She wondered if things would have been better if her or Eret had never joined the server in the first place. _

_ She wondered if safety for her family was really worth risking all this bloodshed. _

_ She wondered if her little brother was okay.) _

* * *

Everyone chattered away as they took down the decorations. 

Niki stayed quiet, opting to start removing the podium, as she heard her friends arguing behind her. She broke a block and froze.

TNT.

There was TNT inside the podium.

She carefully placed the block back and scanned the crowd. Wilbur was nowhere to be found.

She had a bad feeling about this.

"So, Dream, was the traitor thing just bullshit then?"

"Oh, no, there was a traitor."

...oh Prime.

Everyone, including herself, turned to look at Dream. She heard them shouting out questions, but her mind was racing.

He was going to detonate everything.

She should say something, warn everyone--

"...Dream?" She asked quietly.

Tommy laughed. "Well they've missed their fuckin' chance then, haven't they?"

"No, they haven't." She could practically hear the smirk on his face.

Tommy continued bickering with him, clearly not believing the man. She tried to ignore her gut, joining in with the jokes everyone made, about how it was George and he'd slept through it all.

Of course.

Wilbur wouldn't do that. He was her friend. They had  _ won _ .

**Ph1lzA has joined the game.**

A firework launched.

Techno shouted about the government, about anarchy.

All that could be ignored in her eyes. She needed to find Wilbur.

She ran--

_ "You know who the traitor was, Tommy?" Dream shouted through the chaos. _

_ "Tommy, the traitor was Wilbur." _

And the ground exploded beneath her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't get a chance to include it here, since I want to keep this in a chronological order (and it has basically nothing to do with the main story, tbh), but after his exile, Tommy began wearing Wilbur's coat from Pogtopia. The night before Doomsday, he got rid of it--threw it to the winds, as a final farewell.
> 
> The next morning, it was found by a certain pink-haired woman.
> 
> :D
> 
> Also I'm so unsatisfied with the ending of the first part of this chapter aghhhh


	3. Ranboo

Ranboo didn't want to call it a guilty pleasure. But he didn't feel guilty, and it definitely was fun.

It wasn't like it hurt anyone. It was just mini-games. Hypixel was known for them, there weren't any reports of failed respawn runes or anything.

But he loved the chaos of the battlefield. More than a teenager should have.

_ (It wasn't a battlefield. And he wasn't an ordinary teenager. His first step onto a Skywars map, his first blood, his first  _ **_kill_ ** _ had awakened something in him, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it.) _

It wasn't all just the battle that entertained him. Once he had spent an entire day ranting off completely made up facts about spatulas to each  ~~ person ~~ opponent before he killed them. Another time he had distracted someone by holding up a piece of armor, shouting, "You want it? Go get it!" And then throwing it to the side, hitting them with a sword when they weren't looking at him. He had once gone a few hours only hitting people with pickaxes and making puns about it.

That last one had been pretty funny, he decided.

But he didn't like how he enjoyed it. He didn't tell his siblings. He honestly hadn't spoken to them in a while. There  _ was  _ a war going on.

He wished he could help. He wished he wanted to help for better reasons. He wished he could stay away from conflict. He knew he would keep getting himself dragged into it. Maybe it was safer on Hypixel.

Eventually the war ended, he knew. He made a couple jokes about how he could run for president of L'manberg, now. Mostly to himself, though he told his siblings. They had laughed at the concept of him punting Tommy.

And then the letter came.

It arrived while he was on a call with Niki. He read it, not telling her it was there. He stayed on call with her the entire time, even as he walked up to the hub portal with his whitelist ticket.

_ Goodbye, Hypixel. _ He thought, stepping through.

**Ranboo has joined the game.**

* * *

This was all his fault. No other explanation.

If he had just taken responsibility for his actions, just said  _ something _ to take some of the blame off of Tommy--

But Tommy hadn't ratted him out. So he didn't want anyone to know Ranboo had been involved, right? He must have a plan, right?

~~_ (Ranboo didn't particularly want to admit that his self-preservation instincts were coming in place of protecting his new friend. Were they friends? He hoped so. But not enough to say anything. Years on the streets and in the back alleys of his home server with his siblings had taught him to put himself first.) _ ~~

He rationalised it. He didn't speak up. If Tommy wanted him to say something he would have said something. He had thought…

No. Tommy didn't have a plan. He'd been selfless, taking all the blame. Ranboo had been selfish,  _ Ranboo _ had been the one who had kept quiet when he should've said something. He knew that. And when he tried to speak up it was too late.

And now Tommy was in exile. With Dream.

The same Dream who had kept him from his siblings for months. The same Dream who had invited him on after the danger had passed. The same Dream who had threatened L'manberg. But the same Dream who made the server in the first place.

He wasn't sure what Dream's motivations were. But he saw what he had done to his friends, his family, his new country.

He didn't trust him. Ranboo would  _ never _ trust him,he decided. Never side with him, never work with him, nothing. He'd protect his friends from the man with the mask, from whatever he was hiding underneath that thing.

He had to at least try.

* * *

His siblings had helped in the explosion.

He  _ knew  _ they had, he had seen them with Fundy earlier. He had heard Niki announcing that she burnt down L'mantree.

He wondered where everything had gone wrong.

He wondered what this  _ hell-hole _ of a server had done to them.

He looked out at the rubble, before hearing a  _ Ding! _ from his communicator. Incoming call. He picked up, hoping for an explanation from one of them, or…

"Hey Ranboo."

It was Philza.

His siblings hadn't even tried to call. As fair as they knew, he was dead in that crater.

Phil continued. "Did you make it out okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… still alive." He responded.

"Good, good. Where are you right now?"

The two continued the conversation, but Ranboo couldn't stop thinking about Eret and Niki.

They didn't call. Didn't check on him, didn't care. Maybe they never had.

_ (Faintly, he tried to reach out for the memories of Eret giving him food when he hadn't needed to, of Niki making sure no one took him from her when it was just the two of them. He wanted to say that it wasn't true. _

_ The memories were gone.) _

He just wanted to forget about all of this…forget about the people he had once called his family.

"Did you need a place to stay, or are you good?"

He blinked, fully returning to the conversation.

A place to stay.

Away from here, away from all the painful memories.

_ Maybe this time it wouldn't be so bad to forget _ .

"I… I think I do need a place to stay." He admitted.

His siblings would be better off without him, anyways.

His siblings…

His…

What?

What siblings?

He'd always been alone.

~~_...Hadn't he? _ ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranboo: I'll never help Dream!  
> Dream: ...Are you sure about that-


End file.
